Broken Things - by Laura Duke

I've started reading a book by Ann Voskamp called The Broken Way. I'm only a couple of chapters in so far, but I've already found much to be pondering. 

Ann tells of an interaction with her young daughter who was making a paper heart and needed help to stick it on to her clothes, right over her heart. "We need to tape our hearts right to us" the little girls says, "so we always know His love's around us everywhere". She looks down to smooth out the paper heart, but it tragically rips, right down the middle. The mother braces herself for the wave of upset emotion that she expects, but it doesn't come. Instead, the little one says "It's all ok. Maybe the love gets in easier right where the heart's broke open?". 

She later describes a time when her farmer husband reminds her in a time of pain and brokenness that everything on the farm tells the same story. "The seed breaks to give us the wheat. The soil breaks to give us the crop. The sky breaks to give us the rain, the wheat breaks to give us the bread. And the bread breaks to give us the feast. There was once an alabaster jar that broke to give Him all the glory. Never be afraid of being a broken thing". 
 

These stories remind me of Romans 5:3-5

And we also have joy with our troubles because we know that these troubles produce patience. And patience produces character, and character produces hope. And this hope will never disappoint us, because God has poured out his love to fill our hearts. God gave us his love through the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to us.

"Never be afraid to be a broken thing"

Maybe God's love gets in easier right where the heart's broke open?